Rudy: Probe ‘rigged,’ intel bigs ‘clowns’

RUDY GIULIANI said Sunday the U.S. investigation into Russian election meddling is “rigged” and not legitimate.

“We’re more convinced, as we see it, that this is a rigged investigation,” the New York mayor turned attorney for President Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Giuliani again sought to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which is looking at Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election and any possible involvement by members of Trump’s campaign.

He made the claim even as he conceded he could not rule out the possibility low-level campaign associates colluded with the Russians.

“This came as a surprise to me, to the President and to the top four or five people around him,” Giuliani (below) said. “You go out to the outer orbit — how do I know what’s going on? But I don’t think that would matter. You can’t — if there’s collusion with a guy 50 rungs down on the campaign, not that I’m saying it happened, but if it did, I don’t know what that means.”

Giuliani said he doesn’t view the Mueller probe as legitimate.

“Not anymore. I don’t. I did when I came in,” he said.

He insisted the special counsel should never have been appointed. “I’m not saying Mueller is illegitimate. I’m saying the basis on which he was appointed is illegitimate,” Giuliani said.

The latest attack against the Mueller probe comes from reports that an FBI informant met with Trump campaign advisers. Intelligence officials have said it was a standard investigatory tactic, but Trump says it amounted to the Department of Justice placing a “spy” in his campaign.

“You have a President peddling these falsehoods and you have essentially people putting out propaganda like Rudy Giuliani to further that fiction,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “There is no evidence to support that spy theory. This is just a piece of propaganda the President wants to put out and repeat.”

Former CIA director Michael Hayden said use of an informant, like other law enforcement tactics Trump has attacked, was “stunningly normal.”